No one likes to be the bearer of bad news. I’m sure police officers don’t fight each other to see who gets to tell someone that their loved one passed away. Nurses probably don’t volunteer to call people and tell them that their test results were bad. We would all much rather be the Publisher’s Clearinghouse guy, who gets to surprise people with those giant, cardboard checks.
Sometimes its easy for Christians to feel like we’re always raining on someone’s parade. After all, the message of the Gospel calls us to proclaim that all is not right with the world; and what’s more, we must also tell individuals that all is not right with their soul. Now we also get to proclaim the good news of God’s love and forgiveness, but the realism of the Gospel demands that people understand why they need to be forgiven in the first place.
As we seek to proclaim the Gospel, it can also be discouraging if we don’t see people respond to it positively. This isn’t surprising, because everything becomes discouraging if you feel like you’re not seeing the desired results.
So when we might be discouraged about our role as messengers for the king, how can we press on in faithfulness? What is the bedrock that can serve as a lasting foundation for faithful obedience to God?
When the going gets tough, remember what got you going in the first place!
Would you turn with me please to Isaiah 6? In the first five chapters of this book, we have received a basic summary of the message that Isaiah preached throughout his entire ministry. He certainly had the privilege of proclaiming some amazing prophecies about the future, and that message of hope will be prominent in certain parts of this book. But by and large, Isaiah had to repeatedly warn his own people that they were not doing right. Very often, Isaiah had to be the bearer of bad news. So how did he keep going?
In chapter 6, Isaiah describes for us how his ministry got started in the first place. He tells of seeing a majestic vision of the Lord and the commission that he received from the lips of God. His vision can remind us of the gracious cleansing that we have received from God, and the great calling that accompanied it.
1. God’s gracious cleansing (vv. 1-7)
First of all, Isaiah tells us in v. 1 that his vision took place “in the year that King Uzziah died.” According to 2 Chronicles 26, Uzziah had two very distinct periods within his reign. He was king for 52 years—one of the longest reigns among the kings of Judah—and for many years at the first part of his reign, he was faithful to serve God. As a result, God blessed the kingdom greatly.
Unfortunately, all of this success went to Uzziah’s head, and one day he decided that he was going to go inside the Temple in Jerusalem to burn incense to God. That doesn’t sound like such a big deal until we realize that Uzziah wasn’t allowed to do this. According to God’s law, only the priests were allowed to go into the Temple building itself—everyone else could only come into the courtyard around the building. Not even the king was allowed past the courtyard, but Uzziah decided to do things his way, and as a result, God struck him with leprosy, which was a terrible skin disease. Lepers were not allowed to live among the rest of the people for fear that the disease would spread, so Uzziah spent the rest of his life living in solitude. He still retained the title of king, but his son Jotham actually led the nation.
Uzziah’s life was a living example—as clear as day—that God blesses obedience, and punishes disobedience. The people of Judah should have seen that lesson in the life of their own king, but by and large they failed to do so, so God wanted to prepare and commission Isaiah to send a message to them.
Let’s look at a few of the details of what Isaiah saw [READ vv. 1-2]. These seraphim are angels who are mentioned only here in the Bible. It is significant that even though the seraphim, as angels, are sinless beings who dwell in the presence of God, they still demonstrate tremendous humility by covering themselves. We should probably picture them with large wings, so that as they cover their face and feet, their wings are actually covering the entire front of their body.
We can see that they were engaged in worshipping God [READ v. 3]. These angels seem to have had a special fixation on the holiness of God. Holiness is the only trait or attribute of God that is emphasized in this way in the Bible. In Hebrew, repetition like this was used to emphasize an extreme example of something. We do something very similar in English. For example, if you said, “Pastor Tim’s sermon went on and on and on,” you’re saying that my sermon was extremely long.
Well, these angels were saying that God is extremely holy. Holiness is the foundational trait that lies behind everything that God is. Holiness is the idea that something is different—it is in a class all by itself. Thus, God is holy in His existence because He is the only uncreated being that exists. He is holy in the way He expresses love because His love is not tainted with selfishness the way that human love often is. He is holy with respect to sin because He is sinless and thus morally perfect.
Thus, to say that God is holy is about the most concise description of God that you can give, and yet that simple statement speaks volumes. Isaiah was deeply shaken by the stark moral difference that existed between him and the Lord [READ vv. 4-5]. In the previous chapter, Isaiah’s message included several statements of woe against the people for their sinful appetites and attitudes. But Isaiah’s ministry began with him saying, “Woe is me!” We cannot preach a message to others about turning from sin until we have acknowledged our own sin to God, and we must acknowledge that we are sinful at the core of our being. Isaiah states that he is a man of unclean lips, meaning that he had sinned through things that he had said. Jesus clarifies for us in Matthew 12 that our words flow out of our hearts, so sinful words simply reveal a sinful heart.
Isaiah also states that he dwells in the midst of a people of unclean lips. We just learned that God is holy, that He is in a class by Himself, but Isaiah is saying, “I’m just like everyone else around me. I am not holy!” Are we not the same? God has angels as His companions, who cry out about how unique and incomparable He is, but we have other sinners as our companions, and we are right at home with them.
Isaiah’s response is the fitting and appropriate response to his own sinfulness in light of God’s holiness. Within his own capacities, he is hopeless, and he can expect nothing but doom. His only hope is for God to extend grace and mercy, which is precisely what we find in vv. 6-7 [READ vv. 6-7]. Notice that the visible symbol of God’s forgiveness is placed precisely at Isaiah’s point of need. He had said, “I am a man of unclean lips,” so the angel applied the symbol of forgiveness to his lips.
Isaiah was now cleansed from his sins by a merciful and gracious act of God. After he was confronted with the holiness of God, his response of confession was followed by an act of cleansing. He was now prepared to make another response, this time to…
2. God’s great calling (vv. 8-13)
In v. 8, God draws Isaiah into service through a simple question [READ v. 8]. Isaiah’s willingness is a great example for everyone who desires to serve the Lord. When we read about a command from God in the Bible, the only fitting response is willing obedience. Isaiah may have gotten a knot in his stomach, however, after he heard what he was supposed to say [READ vv. 9-10]. Now, this statement sounds very strange. Did God truly not want the people to repent? I think we can safely say that God certainly did want them to repent. In Ezekiel 33:11, God says, “As I live, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.”
So if God wants people to repent, then why do we read a statement like this in v. 10? Well, what we are seeing is an example of a theme that runs throughout Scripture, namely, that God sometimes allows people to feel the full consequences of their sins in order to bring them to repentance. This is similar to what we do as parents when we allow our children to make a bad decision. Sometimes, we warn our children about a bad decision, and we warn them and warn them, but we hit that point where its obvious that they’re not going to listen to us. And so we let them go ahead and make a bad decision in the hopes that they will learn the hard way, since they have chosen not to learn the best way by listening to us.
On several occasions in Scripture, God allowed people to feel the full effects of their rejection of Him. One example of this comes from Pharaoh in the book of Exodus. When God began to send plagues against Egypt to convince Pharaoh to free the Jewish people from slavery, the story says after the first few plagues that Pharaoh hardened his heart and refused to let the people go. However, with the latter plagues, the story says that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart to keep him from letting the people go. It’s like God was saying, “Okay, Pharaoh. It’s obvious what your choice is going to be. Now, you will have to see this through to the end. I’m going to give you the full taste of your consequences so you can see the error of your ways.”
We see the same reality played out in Romans 1. In that chapter, the apostle Paul says that nature itself teaches us about God, but rather than worship God, mankind has chosen to worship what God has created—like idols and animals and the moon and ultimately, ourselves. So as result, it says three times in that chapter that God has given mankind over to our sinful passions. He has allowed mankind to go ahead and pursue our sinful desires so we can feel the full brunt of our foolishness and thus come to our senses.
I believe that is precisely what God was referring to in Isaiah 6:9-10. The people had already rejected the message of several prophets before Isaiah, so Isaiah’s ministry would have a touch of irony to it—as God was reaching out through him, the very act of reaching out would only drive the people further away. God’s Word would inoculate the people to God’s grace. Isaiah’s ministry would be like a vaccine that would make the people resistant to the very message that he was preaching.
Isaiah goes on to ask a very understandable question in v. 11—“How long, O Lord?” The Lord goes on to tell him that the people would in fact have to face the full brunt of His discipline [READ vv. 11-13]. Verse 13 feels like a bit of a riddle, but it seems to be sounding a note of hope in the midst of judgment. It seems to be speaking of a remnant of people who would remain who would be holy—people who would be followers of God. This note of hope would leave Isaiah with some encouragement that the nation would grow once again.
Isaiah had a difficult task ahead of him, and I’m sure there were moments of discouragement and frustration. But Isaiah had this spectacular encounter with God to look back on; remembering this experience could keep Isaiah pressing on to faithfully proclaim God’s Word even if he saw little response.
So how about you and me? What can keep us going when we’re tired of battling our own sinful hearts; when we’re fed up with being ridiculed by others because of the message that we proclaim? We may have never had a visible encounter with God, but we have experience the same blessings that Isaiah received in his vision.
First, we have been the recipients of God’s gracious cleansing. He has removed from our shoulders the weight of sin that threatened to drag us down to hell. Jesus paid our incalculable debt of sin to set us free from the wrath of God that we rightfully deserved.
Have we forgotten about our debt? Have we forgotten just how hopeless our situation was? Have we forgotten the heart-cry that Isaiah uttered for us all—“woe is me!”? Doesn’t it give you a little bounce in your step when you think about the reality of your salvation? When you remember how God’s grace met you at the precise point of your need and cast all your sins into the depths of the sea? When the going gets tough, remember what got you going in the first place!
Second, we have all received God’s great calling as well. We don’t need an audible voice to tell us what to do today because we have God’s Word written down in the Bible. 2 Corinthians 5:20 says that we are ambassadors for Christ. He has returned to heaven for the time being, and He has asked us to watch after the place while He is gone. We are His representatives in this world to tell our fellow sinners that God has offered us terms of peace, that God longs to be reconciled with them if they will just confess their rebellion and accept the payment that Jesus made for them through His death and resurrection. Each and every one of us has this calling from God to keep us going during the times of frustration and fear. When the going gets tough, remember what got you going in the first place!
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